Whisky Romeo Zulu

Whisky Romeo Zulu tells the true story of an Argentinean pilot who helped raise the bar in terms of airline safety, though this is not something we discover until well into the film. The first hour of the movie is devoted to flashbacks of said pilot’s childhood, where he had a crush on a fellow classmate. Such sequences are intercut with his attempts to increase the level of safety awareness within his airline. It all seems so pointless and inconsequential, until it finally becomes evident what the film is actually about (something that doesn’t happen until halfway into the movie!) Whisky Romeo Zulu has been written and directed by Enrique Pineyro, the real-life figure the movie is based on (he even plays himself). The story seems intriguing enough to warrant a straight-forward approach, instead of the structurally awkward style employed by Pineyro (ie there’s absolutely no flow to the film’s events, making it impossible to ever really get into the story). Once certain pieces begin to fall into place towards the end, the inclusion of certain elements begins to make sense (this is particularly true of a subplot involving an airline investigator which seems to be totally superfluous for most of the film’s running time). Whisky Romeo Zulu‘s biggest problem is that it’s just not terribly interesting; aside from providing a little information about an important event in Argentina’s history, the film doesn’t have much else going for it.

*1/2 out of ****